Reztsova's bronze feat: the Russian team took third place in the women's relay at the KM biathlon stage in Ruhpolding

The program of the sixth stage of the Biathlon World Cup in Ruhpolding continued with the last women's relay before the Beijing Olympics.

Many teams did not declare their leaders for it, as Sweden and Norway did.

The Russian team decided to go the other way - all four of the best girls in the sprint, which took place two days earlier, were included in the squad.

Like the previous similar race in Hochfilzen, the relay in Ruhpolding was started by Valeria Vasnetsova.

Last time, she managed to perform quite well and stay in the top six with two misses.

The athlete felt self-confident and at the next starting stage she tried to stay among the leaders.

But a small misfortune befell her - Vasnetsova stumbled and was pushed back by her rivals almost to the tail of the peloton.

However, a small gap did not affect the mood of the 24-year-old Russian woman. When it came time to show her shooting qualities, Vasnetsova worked not only cleanly, but also quickly - only Swiss Irene Kaduris passed the line faster than her. The Russian woman returned to the track ninth, and in the course of the next lap she almost approached the leading trio, which was formed by the Norwegian Marte Røiseland, the Frenchwoman Anais Chevalier-Boucher and the Italian Lisa Vittozzi.

On the counter, Vasnetsova was not so reliable. An attempt for the fourth time in a row (taking into account the sprint) to close all the targets began with a miss. The fifth cartridge also did not immediately find its target. Two misfires still could not be called a big failure, but almost all the participants in the first stage shot better. Vasnetsova fell to 14th place and completely drooped because of this. She passed the final third of the distance with almost the worst time and passed the baton to 17th, 48 seconds behind Røiseland and Vittozzi, who were already noticeably ahead of the rest of the biathletes.

Svetlana Mironova, who showed the eighth result in the sprint, began to reduce the gap from Caroline Knotten and Dorothea Wierer in the second stage, but not at such a huge pace that she could continue to rely on speed. First of all, the Russian woman had to show perfect shooting at least at the first line. And with this there were problems. Mironova's last shot turned out to be inaccurate, and she had to lose everything that was won back on the track. The return to the top ten had to be postponed for at least another lap.

On the stand, Mironova also used one additional cartridge, but this time the rivals had much more serious problems.

Many who ran in front of the Russian made more than two misses, and the German Vanessa Hinz even went to the penalty loop.

Before Mironova, the eighth place was vacated, where she lost 36 seconds to the top three, which included Wierer, Belarusian Dinara Alimbekova and Frenchwoman Chloe Chevalier.

The last round was also given to Mironova hard.

Only tenth managed to pass the baton to Irina Kazakevich, having let rivals from Finland and China go ahead.

The third Russian woman in this relay quickly returned to the top eight, but she was already inferior to the leaders in terms of pace.

And it was impossible to return to the fight for medals with the help of shooting. Calm reigned at the turn, and out of the first six athletes, no one made a mistake on the prone. Kazakevich, on the other hand, did not avoid one mistake, after which she began to lag behind for almost a minute, challenging only seventh place with her closest rivals. The second shooting of the 24-year-old Russian woman was finally successful and allowed her to win another position. But Kazakevich's functional training left much to be desired - in the last two kilometers she lost 20 seconds to the Frenchwoman Justine Brezat-Boucher, who was in the lead. Even the American Didra Irwin, who occupies 79th place in the World Cup, had to skip ahead.

All hope for a successful result fell on Christina Reztsova.

Although it was already impossible to reach the Frenchwoman Julie Simon, 44 seconds were separated from the prize three.

Reztsova did not immediately turn on all the reserves and calmly approached the first shooting.

When she began to take aim, it became known that Anna Sola, who was running third, earned two penalties at once, and the Norwegian debutant Ragnhild Femsteinevik made a mistake.

Getting close to the bronze became real, and the Russian woman took advantage of this.

With clean shooting, she returned to the track at the same time as Femsteinevik and Italian Federico Sanfilippo, who could not be called Reztsova's rivals in terms of speed.

This was confirmed already on the next lap, on which the Russian woman immediately rose to third place.

There was one more firing line to finally stake out the bronze.

Reztsova trembled with the first shot, but quickly corrected herself and still worked better than her fellow travelers.

She raised the Russian team to third place and brought a medal, which at all previous stages seemed to be an unattainable result.

Including Hochfilzen's silver, the women's domestic team won two awards in one season for the first time in nine years.